[Mike in TO]

Bramalea was the most high profile development industry casualty of the real estate crash in the early 90s. It would be roughly equivilant of a company like Daniels or Tridel going bankrupt

Bramalea was established in 1957, they built the Bramalea shopping centre and that whole area between Malton & Brampton. In the 70s they got involved in a number of projects in England as well as Vancouver. They also bought a bunch of office and hotel properties including the Hyatt in Toronto (renamed four seasons). In the 80s they got involved in a number of projects in the U.S. and Trizec bought a portion of company. At their peak in the late 80s Bramelea owned over 40 million sqf of commercial & industrial space including 30 malls. When the real estate market crashed there was a mass sell off of their assets and mass layoffs to try to keep the company afloat, but things didn't work out for them.

The project that eventually became 8 Park Road was one of their projects that did not survive.

 

[Archivist]

I usually try to be positive about buildings but every single thing about 8 Park Road makes me want to vomit or pierce my eyes with hot red pokers. Towered is very fortunate indeed not to have ever noticed the building - I wish that it were so for me.

 

[adma]

Actually I must say this isn't all that ugly with the nice stucco and black glass, a good attempt was made to create half decent elevation ... I recall when they built 8 Park H&R recladded portion of the facade immediately below the tower (that's why you can still see the ugly old facade in the far left of this picture which was not subject to the redeveloped area)

Er, if there's any efficient way to turn the existing Hudson's Bay Centre aesthetic into a rally point for heritage activists, it's to endorse this kind of vile, crude, wretched, cheesy, tacky sewage as an antidote to "the ugly old facade".

Reminds me of my argument that if a lot of you think the Sheraton Centre is bad now, imagine if they took its porte-cochere makeover aesthetic and applied it throughout the building exterior, top to bottom...

 

[Towered]

I usually try to be positive about buildings but every single thing about 8 Park Road makes me want to vomit or pierce my eyes with hot red pokers. Towered is very fortunate indeed not to have ever noticed the building - I wish that it were so for me.

Well whenever I find myself in that area in the future, I shall avert my gaze, lest I be instantly transformed into precast...

 

[299 bloor call control.]

Joy. I guess I should start looking for a new place to live once "renovations" give them a reason to jack up rents.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Hudson's Bay Centre

For those who don't get to the area much or those unfamiliar, here's an image

 

[isittimetomoveyet]

Thanks for the pic. Wanted to show the wife but could not find a good enough picture to show the horror that is this monstrosity... thanks!

 

[Ryuinfinity]

Despite the hideousness, I kind of like the way Marriot towers over the stript of nothing between Yonge and Church.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Certainly hope they could get rid of the RBC branch as well - it's just as hideous as the rest of the Bay complex - and probably did more harm for the corner.

The general state of the underground shopping mall is also an issue - in spite of at least 2 attempts at renovation, it remained generally oppressive and undesirable.

AoD

 

[Observer Walt]

Certainly hope they could get rid of the RBC branch as well - it's just as hideous as the rest of the Bay complex - and probably did more harm for the corner.

The general state of the underground shopping mall is also an issue - in spite of at least 2 attempts at renovation, it remained generally oppressive and undesirable.

AoD

Agreed, on both counts, but I don't really know what can be done. The problem with the Royal Bank is that you have to climb stairs to get to it. It makes no effort at all to address the street, and if the bank moved out, any new occupant would still reflect the same problem. As for the mall, you have to go down from the street to access it, and scurrying underground is not a welcoming experience for many. On top of that, it has unusually low ceilings for a public space, making it feel almost claustrophobic.

Short of blowing the whole thing up, the best thing to do here is to at least punch holes in the big blank facade of the Bay store and create some large windows.

 

[drum118]

Time to tear down the sucker as well the plaza area for the RBC down and build some thing nice that not square or small.

That mall is out of place as well the entrance to TTC.

Need to built a better function way to get to TTC as well start building a second platform for the BD.

This is what you get for going cheap in the first place.

 

[wyliepoon]

Certainly hope they could get rid of the RBC branch as well - it's just as hideous as the rest of the Bay complex - and probably did more harm for the corner.

My company will be doing renovations to the branch soon. Unfortunately for those of you who want to see it significantly altered... the reno will only be interior work, not exterior.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

My company will be doing renovations to the branch soon. Unfortunately for those of you who want to see it significantly altered... the reno will only be interior work, not exterior.

That's my branch, seems to me it was only renovated 3 or perhaps 4 years ago

 

[Dichotomy]

I am sure there were 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' 40 years ago when the model was unveiled. Just like we are 'oohing' and 'aaahing' over 1 Bloor today.
The tower itself (along with the hotel) looks great from a distance, but I agree with the remarks about the disconnect with the street. As with the original Eaton Center design, that was the way architects and planners thought back then...

Makes me wonder how much of the pablum we are being fed today will look in 40 years..........

 

[adma]

The general state of the underground shopping mall is also an issue - in spite of at least 2 attempts at renovation, it remained generally oppressive and undesirable.

Though it's also a classic case of succeeding by default, thanks to its squatting atop the busiest subway entrance and juncture in the whole system--indeed, there's a counter-argument that try as it might through oppressive layout and aesthetics, the HBC mall can't not succeed.

And given the Bloor-Yorkville environs, I'd even argue that the mall's "undesirability" has turned out to be sort of a benign-neglectty plus; I don't mind the fact that its retail still tends to be meat-and-potatoes community-node/shopping-mall-retail-grout stuff like Shoppers, Laura Secord, LCBO, Ardene, Jean Machine, Fabricland, and the food court flotsam--it's a breath of fresh dungeon air after all that oppressive glam to the west.

Despite the hideousness, I kind of like the way Marriot towers over the stript of nothing between Yonge and Church.

And what's especially intriguing is how it must be by far the most perversely aloof high-rise building anywhere in Toronto--just thrusting up from the deepest bowels of the pillbox, true to no street elevation or nothing other than itself, or any apparent sort of human activity less than 100 feet above ground level. Must be a terrible place to be, psychologically speaking, in case of a "towering inferno" situation (and I seem to recall there *was* a fire there in the 80s or so, with the singed floors visible).

And no kidding about the Ashley Dupre comment; as I think of it, I recall reading that the tower long ago housed one of the city's top escort agencies--there's something just so illicit about the idea of living there in that mid-air tomb, or womb, or whatever it is...